How much money do you think you could get by on, purely for food and entertainment?

So not including any regular bills at all, so gas, leccy, rent, mortgage, council tax, insurance, car payment etc etc are all excluded.

Just curious to know what you think about:

What you think is a decent average amount?

What you could get by on if you had to skimp by?

And How much to you reckon you really spend?

Anyhow, just for conversational purposes.

Me personally, I just spend what I have spare. But I’m getting to that age where I really should start saving and budgeting rather than spending as it comes in. Which prompted the question, just curious to how other people view this.

Food/ents only? Well, I’ve managed on £300 in the past. I usually count on about £600 these days after everything else is taken care of plus savings/ISA etc

If I really wanted to save money I’d ditch my girlfriend. 😈

l’ll let you know in a month or two, starting to record every penny. See what i spend see what i can do away with.

The reason is seeing what can really afford to spend if i can get a house deposit together.

pfffff, if it was just me then a reasonably small amount but i have 3 endlessly hungry mouths to fill. I dont even want to think about it 😀

stupid question! – guessing you are single with no kids and living alone?

Are we counting broadband and TV in entertainment, or just going out? If just going out, I could get by on £0 a month. But maybe not every month unless I had to.

Food-wise, if we shop at Aldi our weekly shop is about £60 for a family of four.

Should one include or exclude staff?

How much money do you think you could get by on, purely for food and entertainment?

What you think is a decent average amount?
What you could get by on if you had to skimp by?
And How much to you reckon you really spend?

I’d say a round thousand is a decent amount. You can eat well, drink well and go out a fair bit

I’ve gotten by on around £40 a week before. It helps if you are focussed on stuff other than socialising though.

I really spend around £600 a month on food and whathaveyou. Could spend more but me and my wife are working hard at the mo so out and about in the evenings a bit less.

What isn’t excluded?

I could survive on nothing. When my previous job was in trouble that’s just what I did lunches for the week were no more that £5 in total, i ate cheap fruit and a wholemeal roll with a bit of processed chicken… I list loads of weight, it was great. I did pretty much nothing out of work because I couldn’t afford to. It was a sad existence and my relationship was nearly a casualty because of it.

With my new job i’m at the opposite end of the scale, but I still do the same, except I eat more for lunch and I’ve put on weight. I have zero outgoings except those excluded in your first post. I leave myself £300 for the month, everything else goes into my savings. At the end of the month I tend to still have most of the £300 left and that goes into my savings too… I never feel guilty about spending silly amounts on a bike or garmin though for no reason other than I want it.

GW – Member
stupid question! – guessing you are single with no kids and living alone?

Well, aye, but still, the question is open to everyone.

miketually – Member
Are we counting broadband and TV in entertainment, or just going out? If just going out, I could get by on £0 a month. But maybe not every month unless I had to.

Food-wise, if we shop at Aldi our weekly shop is about £60 for a family of four.regular bills not included basically.

Could I get by on? If I was on my own and I had to,

purely for food and entertainment

, I reckon I could get by on <£100pm. How long would I want to do that for? That’s another question.

I take out £40 a week and that covers it all….there’s a bit of cupboard raiding by the end but it’s usually ok. Bear in mind I don’t drink/smoke/socialize or have what most would consider ‘a life’.On the flipside I’m sat here staring at a brand new Giant TCR sl ISP frameset :0) (2.5k)

<£100pm???? WTF?? Some of the young ladies that provide my evening entertainment, if you know what I mean, charge at least that per hour…

Lovin’ = free*
Bikin’ = free*
Food = cheap

*apart from the ride that goes wrong

As a singleton I budget on £600 per month. No booze, fags, drugs, or hookers and I barely go out. WTF

Single and £600pm on food and entertainment that doesn’t involve booze, drugs, hookers or going out? WTF??

When i was an undergrad i remember buying loaves of bread for 7p in Tesco and value cheese for about a quid. It is amazing how far you can stretch money when only eating cheese toasties.

When i was an undergrad i remember buying loaves of bread for 7p in Tesco and value cheese for about a quid. It is amazing how far you can stretch money when only eating cheese toasties.

You will die a rich man, my friend, young but rich.

I reckon I live off about £30 a week.

don, you spend that much on phone sex? dedicated 😉

pfffff, if it was just me then a reasonably small amount but i have 3 endlessly hungry mouths to fill. I dont even want to think about it

+1, its not me its the unbelievable amount ‘they’ get through

When i was an undergrad i remember buying loaves of bread for 7p in Tesco and value cheese for about a quid. It is amazing how far you can stretch money when only eating cheese toasties.

I recall buying living off a tin of beans and a loaf of bread, bought with a cheque….

When i was an undergrad i remember buying loaves of bread for 7p in Tesco and value cheese for about a quid fresh chicken, pasta, fresh veg, tinned fish etc etc for a few quid. It is amazing how far you can stretch money when only eating cheese toasties well.

don, you spend that much on phone sex? dedicated

Practice makes perfect.

About a grand, maybe a bit lot more

organdonor
for a few quid.

Money bags

eeeuuuwwww gross

Trying to buy a house atm so as little as possible without not having a decent amount of fun ….. Although ive hardly raced this year due to cost

Total outgoings < 1000 for everything( rent , rate , fuel, leccy ,food, fun) for the past 6 months – was even less when i was working away – all food and fuel paid for just had rent and rates really to pay for

Wish I earnt a grand a month – think I have less than £200 a month to spend on food/drink/clothes after bills are paid – that has to include any petrol too, so the car doesn’t get used very often. Who needs new clothes anyway – apart from the odd new bit of cycle clothing of course.

I have £70 a month for me after bills.

My outgoings before fun are >£2000 pcm

My outgoings before fun are >£2000 pcm

I can put you in touch with experienced people if you want help with your business.
Email in profile.

About £ 130.00p per week, this does not include any bills/mortgages etc

don – I can contact jumpupanddown myself ta 😉

I grew up in a cardboard box int middle t road an i were lucky…

I grew up with nowt, lived for a long time with nowt. I’d rather not but its amazing on how little we really need to live on.

im a student managing to live off £30 a week, and i manage to go out to town with that (just about anyway).

Me and the missus spend about £250 a month, including food bills. The only real expenses are wool for her and getting to races for me.

im a student managing to live off £30 a week, and i manage to go out to town with that

How much does a loaf of Tesco Value bread and a tin of value beans cost these days? When I was a student (a while ago now) Tescos were selling beans for about 4p a tin, and bread for about 20p a loaf or something, so it was possible to eat for a week for about a quid.

Our Halls weren’t a pleasant place to be if you a)had a sense of smell or b)didn’t like beans.

Edit. I spend a bit more than that now, but I still fart a lot.

I have 2 teenage daughters, so I can say I am ****… 😐

After returning from the pub the other night (me, not them!) they told me how the money I had spent could have bought them so many ‘products’ and if I didn’t go out at all for a while they could have some GHD’s 😯

I will still go out – at least I help keep pubs open and people in jobs 😉

Tescos were selling beans for about 4p a tin

😯 😆

tesco value beens are now around 26p i think, but as ive found, it varies from place to place. i usually splash out and get morrisons value beens as they taste a bit nicer, but are relatively expensive at 31p (they were 25p about a month ago :x). i dont buy the bread so cant get the price on that but value bran flakes are 77p, bagels are 90p odd, ketchup is 14p etc.

i keep meaning to start a blog reviewing all the tesco value stuff, its surprisingly not that bad. its funny how the packaging successfully puts people off buying it…

A couple of years ago I’d just bought a new house and after the mortgage increase I was strapped. So to keep in budget I recorded all spend. I allowed 35 quid a week for food, 100 for ents.I ended the year having saved about 1200, enough for a decent holiday. so, about 110 a week, or nearly 500 a month. That is central London prices.